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2017-04-24

A Vision of Trump at War FP

A Vision of Trump at War

Just a few months into the Trump administration, it still isn’t clear what course the president’s foreign policy will ultimately take.  What is clear, however, is that the impulsiveness, combativeness, and recklessness that characterized Donald Trump’s election campaign have survived the transition into the presidency.  Since taking office, Trump has continued to challenge accepted norms, break with diplomatic traditions, and respond to perceived slights or provocations with insults or threats of his own.


The core of his foreign policy message is that the United States will no longer allow itself to be taken advantage of by friends or foes abroad.  After decades of “losing” to other countries, he says he is going to put “America first” and start winning again.

It could be that Trump is simply staking out tough bargaining positions as a tactical matter, the approach to negotiations he has famously called “the art of the deal.”  President Richard Nixon long ago developed the “madman theory,” the idea that he could frighten his adversaries into believing he was so volatile he might do something crazy if they failed to meet his demands—a tactic that Trump, whose reputation for volatility is firmly established, seems particularly well suited to employ.

The problem, however, is that negotiations sometimes fail, and adversaries are themselves often brazen and unpredictable.  After all, Nixon’s madman theory—designed to force the North Vietnamese to compromise—did not work.


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